Nonsuch

You can't make rotten people normal with therapy. You can teach hurt people how to deal with some of childhood traumas so they don't sabotage themselves, but you can't make them good. Good or bad is character , character is not subject to therapy, especially when that character is an utterly unhinged, sadistic, power mad psychopath.

"Hungry elephants hatching all over the field " is now my favorite auto-translated sub. That and FML being Canonized Hairpin General . 🤣🤣

Question to Chinese speakers: do Chinese speakers differentiate genders, personal pronouns, and tenses?
I took a quick look at one leaked ep 's subtitles and they have the same sort of mistakes throughout HE /SHE, I/YOU, past /present, and the direction of action as in who does what to whom? and near constant use of wrong prepositions. These are auto translated, but I have noticed the same thing in officially released dramas on Viki and even Netflix. . Some drama subs on Viki were a hoot, btw, misuse of words is hilarious. But even in translated novels on the web there is often confusion between He and She; same goes for sequence of tenses. And translators seem to use pupil instead of eye all the time, stunned instead of surprised or shocked, pinch instead of hug and more. I wonder what in the original that triggers that?

You must be kidding. The notion that villains are just poor misunderstood babies is preposterous.

Why did she take him for sworn brother? One would think the girl should have some street smarts even if she can't read.

They should have dropped that plot line all together, it was totally unnecessary, and frankly a tad silly. Even her outfit as a doctor was so reminiscent of British RN in WWI it made me laugh.

Yes, agree. And the character development has turned to be the weakest point . I am reading the novel now, and it is considerably more gritty, things make much more sense between them, and the political intrigue is coherent. It is a shame imo, that what could have been a jewel of a drama through out, went to pot instead.

I see. I actually thought they sacrificed screen time to rhapsodize about the virtues of common village life. They dwelled on every tiny detail of that village life with so much care and then just wiped them all out to make a point of the horrors of war and politics. I kind of thought it was aligned with CCP ideology of ordinary life is the best life and go back to villages. Village winter sequence was visually sublime, and then spring came and everything just changed - color, lighting, visuals other then special effects in fights. I thought they wanted to create nostalgia for that village life, it was not so much about love scenes imo.

I disagree. It is not a matter of not enough time. A good writer can use whatever constrain to their advantage. And frankly 40 eps is more than enough time. Korean dramas manage to tell a coherent story in 16. Films do it in 2 hr. Also you may not like romance part, but that is what this is: it is a love story. Intrigue is a vehicle for character development not the main point.

why marketing?

Same. I kind of starting to feel it was going down the hill earlier. The village part way way too long, and massacre - quarry part was way too long, and then at 28 it just became ridiculous with characters, motivation, plausibility. I honestly don't understand why is it a thing with so many c-dramas? They start brilliantly and just become a mess by act 3. Censorship is sure a thing, but it is not as if writers don't know how censors work. They obviously have talent, so why?

He also doesn't want there to be an alternative to him as a rightful heir.

As far as I am concerned eps 30-31 are a mess writing wise. It is mostly what is known as exposition, and the rest is a collection of snippets put together in some sort of order. I couldn't care for any of the leads - they got so devoid of plausibility, or any character development, they have become marionettes. The only way I can describe the memorial and the next scenes is 'pathetic'. Her behavior is just so self-indulgently, sentimentally idiotic , I can't believe they wrote her scenes that way! And he has become a non entity.

QM is not getting the throne in the novel - nor , I think, in the drama. . As far as I have been able to understand, QM is really psychotic. It is not that he wants to kill his son , but I am guessing he is capable of killing him if the boy becomes a hindrance to him, and his aim to kill his 'brother' and 'father' and other people who are responsible for the events 17 year ago. I am not 100% sure, because as you pointed out the pacing and story telling flow went to pot 2/3 in. It all over the place, but that is what the most plausible explanation is to me.

Yes, it has been a trend - start with a bang end with a whimper.

I am disappointed that the drama went from exceptional to WTH is happening and why? I mean, it is pretty and watchable, but it is not on the same level it started out on.

For me drama has gone off the rails at ep 28. I am really disappointed, it was pure enchantment for the first 20 eps! Then it just went flat, and then turned into a mess. Things stopped making sense, pacing went off, too many coincidences as plot devices, characters behaving out of character . 😭

Thank you!

" And CY, who was supposed to be a strong but otherwise ignorant village girl, suddenly became a perfect heroine?" - YES! He is an proven hero with an outstanding talent honed though a life long training, a long standing team of advisors, learning, he has loyal army, reputation, code, experience, and purpose, and all of a sudden she becomes his equal and even outshines him at a drop of her butcher's knife?! It is ridiculous.

That makes sense. I downloaded the novel, hope translation is good enough in English to do the story justice. As an aside, love sick fool seems to be a current trend. Hope it changes soon.